Monday, February 16, 2009

Steam Heat Woes

Glad I Was Home

I have steam heat in my house with old fashioned radiators. The heat is super, but I had a leak in the boiler a while ago and when I filled the boiler with water, it overfilled and then I had floods in some of the rooms upstairs from the radiators. I thought all was well, but at the end of last week, I had some more flooding. The pipes were clanking and clunking badly too.

I called my heating guys today, and they came out to find the boiler again apparently overfilled. The conclusion was that the valve on the water intake was faulty and water was leaking in, causing an overflow, which then caused water go build up in the radiators/pipes and cause the floods. The repair crew came today and spent a good part of the afternoon cleaning and replacing things. Hopefully all will be well and I will be able to afford the bill. *sigh*

I finally got out to the barn around 3 PM or so to see if I could ride. My hip area is still sore as if something is pulled and I wasn't at all sure I would be able to sit on a horse.

Well, I needn't have worried. It felt just fine once I was in the saddle. I gave Tucker a short but solid school with lots of transitions, then rode him long and low for a while before heading out for a hack. Just like Toby yesterday, he decided to take the longer route home along the ridge. He was absolutely an angel with only one "looky almost spook" at a chair stuck strangely in the woods. But otherwise, we had a lovely hack.

Then I saddled up Chance and schooled him in the arena for a little while. I gave him a fairly long canter session on each lead. His right lead is rushed as I guess he still needs to find his balance, but the left lead was nice and relaxed. His trot work was well forward and working towards the bit, although we still have a lot of work to do, and his walk was steady. I took him out into the woods afterwards and he was relaxed to the point of being lazy. I took the same path as Tucker had taken in the reverse direction and ran into a more serious spook at the same chair (it is white plastic.) To avoid it all I headed down the hill to the lower trail and ran into more trouble with a section of frozen and not so frozen water-filled ruts blocking our way. Try as I might could not persuade Chance to walk through what looked to be a drier section because as he stepped, the ice/mud was making cracking noises. I don't know if it was one of those "Black Beauty" moments when it really wasn't safe to cross, but I finally found another way around instead of battling it out.

I'll only push my horses to go where they don't want to go if I am sure it's safe. Otherwise all I will do is undermine their trust in me as a rider. It's my job not to make them take any chances to risk our safety. (I am in total agreement with Caroline about that jump!!) In this case, I was pretty sure the ground was fine, but without dismounting to check I couldn't be sure. I don't know how that footing holds up this time of year either as it is generally pretty swampy kind of ground.

When we got back into the woods and reached a nice little stretch I asked for trot. Chance moved right out and then slid into some canter. There wasn't a lot of room to go, but he was easy to pull up and I was really happy to find him so forward. What a good kid.

Toby made it clear when I showed him the bridle that he had no interest in working so I let him have his way. He's earned a happy retirement with an occasional ride to keep him healthy and sound.

Back to school tomorrow. I'll just have to see how my energy level holds up for riding when I get home.

The Saga of Magiskeep

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About Me

I have been riding for more than 50 years and owned horses since 1971.
I am a retired High School English teacher and a political/environmental activist.
I write fantasy stories/novels and am a soprano choir member and soloist. I have also authored a few songs that have been published and performed.